The World Youth Alliance Nigeria recently held its national youth
summit in Awka, Anambra State to flag off its attitudinal change and
character reformation campaign.At the ceremony, some distinguished individuals were also honoured with merit awards.
In his welcome address, the National Director, Information and Strategy, Mr Harrison Chika Mmadudili called on Nigerians to heed the clarion call of portraying the right attitudes wherever they are and in everything they do so as to help build a violence-free country.
He pointed out that the World Youth Alliance comprises young men and women from every part of the world working in cooperation with other organs of the international community, primarily the United Nations and the European Union, saying that the group was committed to building free and just societies through culture.
“That culture affirms the inalienable dignity of the person, defends the intrinsic right to life, nurtures the family and fosters a social climate favourable to integral development, solidarity and mutual respect.
“We at the World Youth Alliance Nigeria have chosen four cardinal points in line with the Federal Government’s national youth policy in promoting the United Nation’s Millennium Development goals and UNESCO cultural practices for youth development which includes youth and employment, youth and education, youth and ICT, youth and sports and it is in line with this that we chose Youths: Social Re-orientation and Peace Building, as this year’s theme for the summit,” he said.
The Chairman of the occasion, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, who was represented by the Vice Chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof. Joseph Eberendu Ahaneku, urged the youths to embrace entrepreneurship as the panacea to youth unemployment and restiveness.
Anyim said that in the competitive global world of today, the youths should not be desperate in looking for the elusive Golden Fleece abroad or white collar jobs, but should rather create jobs on their own through entrepreneurship.
He said it was in line with the realization of that goal that the Nnamdi Azikiwe University and few other institutions in the country set up centres for entrepreneurial studies to equip the youths in that direction.
Also, the Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano in his message to the youths delivered by his Special Adviser on Youth Empowerment, Dr. Gil Onyeka Ibezim, harped on the need for the youths to take their destiny in their hands.
“If I had the notion that youths are the leaders of tomorrow, my own tomorrow wouldn’t have come today. Rise up and develop your potentials. Our administration in Anambra wants to do things in a very organized way and that is why we started by getting a data on the number of unemployed youths in the state so that we can know how to fix them.
“Empowerment is not all about money alone; it also involves morality because if you are morally bankrupt, you have destroyed everything. Most programmes of the youth are hijacked by people with ulterior motives but I charge you to continue in whatever you are doing that is right and you will get a positive result,” the governor said.
The Founder, Tansian University and Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Youth Alliance, Monsignor (Prof), John Bosco Akam in a thought provoking keynote speech said that theme of the forum readily sounded or sent out danger signal to all discerning minds that all was not well with the life condition of the youths in virtually all the nations of the world.
He said that for the youth to be able to play positive roles in the society, parents, religious leaders, community leaders, opinion molders and above all, the government has a duty to provide them with the enabling environment, as well as guide them into playing crucial roles for them to be useful to the society and to themselves.
X-raying the challenges facing the youths, Prof Akam identified their biggest problems as under-parenting and over-parenting.
He described under-parenting as a situation where parents give their children perfectly adequate care but do not spend enough time or the right kind of time with them, saying that the consequences of this could be most serious.
For over-parenting as he quoted a parent coach, Michael Grose, he said it occurs when parents allow their children to avoid legitimately challenging situations, so that they would not be inconvenienced.
“Over-parenting is predominantly a mindset. It is a belief that children can’t overcome difficulties themselves and they can’t cope with discomfort or be disappointed. It comes with increased affluence, but it can occur in any socio- economic setting. Grose explained that ‘an over-parented child is a protected spoilt child,’” he said.
Monsignor Akam noted that today’s youths are afflicted by new challenges like an identity crisis, lack of self confidence and low self-esteem, sense of hopelessness, confusion and ambiguity concerning moral values, the negative impact of the electronic media and competitiveness in education – the uneven playing field – leading to unaffordability of education by most youths.
Proffering solutions, the cleric said that in view of the level of ruin which the youths have steadily plunged both themselves and the society into, everyone should wake up to the clarion call for the social reorientation of youths out of the woods.
He advised that an enabling environment should be created for a prosperous future for the youths.
During the interactive session, the participants asked several questions bugging them while the forum was also used for networking and sharing contacts.
One of the award recipients during the programme Hon. Ikechukwu Umeh, member representing Aguata 1 Constituency in the Anambra State House of Assembly told Oriental News that the recognition showed him that he has been walking in the right direction and that his numerous youth empowerment programmes have not been in vain.
He said the group by their award has given him more tasks to start thinking and doing more in the same direction.
He charged the youths to work hard and improve on what the elderly people have done.
Monsignor Akam who also received an award from the organizers told Oriental News that the secret behind his numerous empowerment programmes and scholarships to the youths and physically challenged was as a result of the vow he made so many years back.
“What inspires me to lift people like you asked is not the profit-making angle but the fact that I vowed in 1985 to empower young people through education and now it has extended to other ways because all along, I’ve noticed there is a lacuna in the overall programming of each country, state or community whereby young people are marginalized or kept aside and they are deceived into believing that it is in future or tomorrow that they will be remembered not today.”
“Government and education is not for them today, it is for tomorrow. They are not supposed to be in charge now but tomorrow and things like that but I say that things cannot continue to be that way. That can’t be because you can deceive some people for some time but not all the people, all the time. And that is why I moved into the field not that I’m going to change the whole world but little drops can make the ocean,” he said.
The summit ended with issuance of certificate of participation to the youths who attended....post by expdonaloaded
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